Nemesis, page 25
“What’s up?” I ask, wondering what could be more urgent than Nemesis’s post-fight victory swim.
“Neo-Boston,” she says. “It’s shaking.”
44
“What can make a whole city shake?” Blackwater asks.
We’re still airborne, cruising south, but inside one of the larger transports, seated on benches opposite each other in the back. The solo drones are fun, but I’m getting a little tired of the wind in my face.
“Nothing good,” I say.
“Something underground,” Munk says. “That’s where these guys like to hide, right?”
“Divine Retribution,” I say, “Yeah, but Boston’s underground is controlled by someone else.” I turn to Blackwater. “Could this have anything to do with your ex?”
She shakes her head. “Brewer loves Beantown. It’s his home. He wouldn’t do anything to put the city at risk, including the city beneath the city. As long as the world lets him run his little empire, he’s happy to live and let live.”
Munk snaps her fingers at Blackwater and me. “Wasn’t talking about Divine Retribution.”
“Golyats,” Maigo says.
Munk nods. “We don’t know how long they’ve been able to grow those things, right? I mean, it wouldn’t really be normal to develop a weapon and deploy it the following day, right? So, they’ve probably had this for a while. At least long enough to grow something that can shake a city—maybe because it’s stomping around somewhere—”
“—or because it’s grown too big,” Maigo adds.
Munk hitches a thumb to Maigo. “She gets it.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I feel like we’d have noticed a kaiju growing beneath the city.”
“Maybe not,” Blackwater says. “Brewer once told me that there are layers of unexplored terrain beneath Neo-Boston. Older than the old city.”
“So, let’s lift up the city’s skirt and have a look,” Munk says.
Munk isn’t even questioning her place on our little makeshift team. Yesterday she was a tour guide. Today, she’s got a front row seat to kaiju battles and the potential end of the world. The reason she’s still here—long after my gratitude for her saving my life has worn off—is that it takes a certain kind of someone to experience what she has and remain clearheaded. If she wants it when all is said and done, there’ll be a future for her at the NSO.
“I don’t think my former husband will be as accommodating as he was last time,” Blackwater says. “Even if you start shooting more people.”
I nod in agreement. Doesn’t take a prophet to predict our next meeting with Brewer has the potential to be a monumental shit-show. “So, we don’t have the conversation on his terms.”
“How’s that?” Blackwater asks.
“We extract him,” Maigo says, reading my mind.
“Take him out of the underground. Let Nemesis get a whiff of his human-trafficking ass. Put him on the pole. See how long he holds his tongue.”
“And if Nemesis comes for him?” Blackwater asks.
“Then she’ll be headed in the right direction,” I say.
“What I mean is…will you—”
“I know what you mean,” I say, pondering the question. Getting him to talk will be easy. Promising to return him to the underground, safe from Nemesis’s gaze would loosen the Devil’s tongue. But cutting deals with those deemed worthy of sacrifice…that’s not in my job description. “If Nemesis comes for him, I’m not standing in her way. You have a problem with that?”
She grins. “I’ll help you drag his sorry ass to the surface.”
Owens’s voice crackles into my comm. “Graham, now a good time?”
“We were just planning a vacation,” I say.
“Hope it’s somewhere nice,” he says, taking my response to heart.
“Not remotely,” I say. “What’s up?” I turn toward the empty cockpit like Betty is actually sitting there. “Betty, can you put my comms on speaker?”
“Done,” she says.
Owens follows her up with, “We got the results back on the Golyat sample you brought in. It’s…interesting. Confusing. Not sure what all of it means, but…”
“Spill it,” I say.
“Right… Well, most of the tests came back inconclusive, as expected. Like Nemesis, it’s not really something we have the processes to describe. But unlike Nemesis, we were able to recognize some of its DNA.”
“Some of it,” I say.
“As expected, most of it lines up with Nemesis’s. They used her to make Golyats. But they added some things that our science team believes makes as a bridge between human and…well, goddess, DNA. Like a binder.”
“That’s why they retain human knowledge,” Maigo says.
“Most likely,” Owens says.
“So, what’s in the special sauce?” I ask.
“Nothing that’s going to make sense. Most of it is gobbledygook, but we flagged one gene developed for use in crops. RC-714. It’s meant to unlock dormant junk DNA, allowing target plants to grow in a variety of conditions. Corn in the desert. Apple trees on a cliff. That sort of thing. When animal testing revealed it did the same thing to mice that ate those crops—and gave them an insatiable appetite for…other mice, the project was scrubbed, and the crops burned. Best guess, one of the researchers was Divine Retribution. Snuck their research out before it was classified and filed away in some government warehouse of bad ideas. Divine Retribution is using RC-714 with the human body, allowing it to adapt to Nemesis’s genetic make-up.”
“RC seven fourteen, and Nemesis genes, that’s what little Golyats are made of.”
Blackwater gives me an unimpressed look. “Cute.”
“I try,” I say, and then to Owens, I ask, “Any clues on how to take them down?”
“Not a one,” he says, “though I think we’ve identified a surefire way to get the job done.”
“Destroy the head,” Munk says. “That’s some real old-school zombie shit.”
“Works on people, too,” I point out.
“And just about anything else with a brain,” Blackwater adds.
Maigo holds up a finger. “Except Nemesis.”
“Only because her head is indestructible,” Owens adds.
“I’m sorry,” Donald says, standing up at the back of the transport. “Y’all are crazy! Please, just put me on the ground. Anywhere is fine. I’ll find a way home my own damn self.”
“Oh, hey, Don. Forgot you were here. Any thoughts you’d like to share?”
“Lord have mercy,” he says, exasperated. “First she comin’, now we goin’. And y’all are talking about callin’ her back? I want no part in whatever foul shenanigans you’re up to.”
I smile. Donald is a good guy but doesn’t have the constitution for this business. “We’ll reach NSO HQ in…”
“Ten minutes,” Owens says.
“Ten minutes,” I repeat. “Then you can get on back to your broken lighthouse.”
His expression sours. I think he forgot his seaside workplace had been converted into a roofless yurt. He sits back down and crosses his arms with a “Harumph.”
“If anyone feels uncomfortable with the plan,” I say, “now is the time to say so.”
Munk raises her hand. “What was the plan, again?”
“Infiltrate the underground full of unsavory people, track down their leader, and if he’s not forthcoming with what we want to know, extract him to the altar and bind him to the pole until he spills his guts, both figuratively and literally.”
“And if he talks, we still leave him there?” Munk asks.
“If Nemesis gets a whiff, it’s him or Neo-Boston,” I say.
She nods. “I get that. Just feels a little bit like murder.”
I let out a grumbly sigh. She’s not wrong. That’s what’s been weighing on my mind for years. I am the facilitator of death—sometimes to the truly deserving—sometimes to people who might get twenty years in prison for their crime.
“Needs of the many,” I say.
She sighs, sounding a little bit like me. “I’ve seen Star Trek. I get it. I just…don’t like it.”
“First time you do, Nemesis might add you to the menu.”
“Has that ever happened?” she asks.
“Just once,” Owens says. “The NSO’s psychological vetting got a lot more stringent after that.”
Blackwater raises her hand, and I say, “No one needs to raise their hands!”
“I’ll help with the extraction, but I need to sit out the sacrifice.” Before I can ask why, Blackwater says, “Self-preservation.”
She’ll take pleasure in seeing him judged, condemned, and eaten.
Don’t blame her. He’s not exactly ex-husband of the year. He’s hardly human. If I didn’t have so much practice not giving a shit, I might take some pleasure in his death. The trick is to feel good about justice being done, not the suffering the sacrifice is enduring. There’s a big difference, at least to Nemesis.
“Okay,” I say. “Any other concerns?”
Don raises his hand. “Do you know how much longer you have? Before whatever is shaking Neo-Boston shakes too much?”
“Good question,” Owens says. “Right now, the quakes aren’t intense. 2.4 on the Richter scale. But they’re increasing. Within the hour, we’ll be looking at a 4.0. Two hours: 6.0. That’s going to cause a lot of damage, mostly because it won’t be just one quake. It will be several, each one slightly more severe than the last. After that, things’ll get really bad. If we reach 8.0…or 10, there won’t be a city left. And if you’re still underground when that happens…”
“We get to find out what it’s like to be a tube of toothpaste,” I say.
“When I was younger,” Don says. “Used to walk everywhere. Wasn’t much of a choice back then. Shortest way to get from one place to another was often a train track. Best way to know a train is comin’ ain’t by listening with your ears, it’s by placing your hand on the track, feelin’ the vibration. The harder it shakes, the closer it gets. Comes a time when you know to get off the track ‘fore that train comes roaring around the bend.”
“There a point to this story, Don?” I ask.
“Point is,” he says, “Those aren’t earthquakes you’re feelin’. They’re vibrations from something big comin’, and y’all better suss out when to get off the mutha fuckin’ tracks ‘fore you get run over.”
45
“Where is she now?”
“Mile off the coast,” Owens says, “heading south, but not in a hurry. Whatever’s happening in Neo-Boston… It hasn’t set her off.”
“Yet,” I say.
“You’re sure about this?” Collins asks, elbows on the conference table separating us.
“Don seemed pretty sure about it,” Munk says.
Collins raises her eyebrows. “Who…is Don?”
“The lighthouse keeper,” I say. “He had an analogy. About vibrating train tracks. How you can feel trains coming.”
Collins nods. “Makes sense.”
“It does?” I ask.
“I wasn’t always Director of the NSO,” she says. “Growing up in small town, Maine? Sometimes the fastest route from A to B is train tracks.”
“Okay, that’s basically what Don said.” Munk is all grins, clearly thrilled just to be in the room with Collins, let alone having a conversation with her.
“But if Don is right…”
“Something is rising,” I say, “beneath Neo-Boston. That’s why we need to evacuate.”
“There hasn’t been a city-wide evacuation anywhere in the world for three years,” she says. “We do this and the whole world panics.”
“And is watching your every move,” Blackwater adds.
“Look at it this way,” I say. “If it’s the wrong call, you’ll set a record for getting and losing the Director’s position in a single day.”
Collins glowers. “Not helpful.”
I stand and walk to the conference room windows. “Losing our jobs is at the bottom of a long list of things that could go to shit if we’re wrong. An evacuation on its own could result in a loss of life. It’ll cost millions of dollars. And like Blackwater said, there will be a worldwide audience for what will either be a battle for the fate of humanity, or a colossal fuck up made by two directors on their first day on the job.”
I look down at the perfectly coiffed grounds of the NSO headquarters. “Here’s the thing. If we’re wrong, and our jobs are gone, I’ll still feel pretty fucking jolly about that outcome. Means we stopped Divine Retribution up in Maine. But if we do nothing, and we’re wrong, you might as well stake us to an altar pole.”
Collins sighs, fingers clasped, feeling the weight. “Agreed, but we’ll need all emergency personnel, including the NSO, to evacuate Boston that quickly. We won’t have the resources to simultaneously perform an extraction in what I assume is a heavily armed and very pissed off underground.”
“I can help with that,” Blackwater says.
“You want me to authorize sending the Nemesisters to war under the streets of Boston, while they’re being evacuated?” Collins shakes her head.
“I’d also want a lot of guns—seeing as you all won’t be using them. And I’ll need a new motorcycle.”
The pair have a stare off. Then Collins smiles. Moves on without answering. “All this for what?”
“Answers,” I say. “Information. We need to know what Divine Retribution’s endgame is, and if it’s what we think it is—”
“A big ass Golyat beneath Neo-Boston,” Munk chimes in.
“—then we need to get Nemesis’s attention on Neo-Boston before it reaches the surface.”
“We already know what they want,” Maigo grumbles. She’s been silent for the entire meeting. She looks up and directly into Collins’s eyes. “Divine Retribution wants to take Nemesis’s place. They want to judge the world according to their moral code, which is guided by the fragile ego of a deluded man who believes himself to be a god on par with Nemesis. So much so that he found a way to become one. If Damion Dunn becomes this world’s next judge, jury, and executioner, we are all dead. The whole god damned world is dead…or worse. Turned into Golyats. And this isn’t a next year scenario. This is a today scenario. The moment Nemesis falls, we’d have weeks—maybe days—before the human race and every other living thing that isn’t a fucking monster was dead. Unless you have a way to create a giant wall or an uncrossable divide, this is our only option. And we need to start now.”
The silence that follows makes even me uncomfortable.
“I think my partner has spent too much time with me,” I say, trying to smooth things over, but Collins silences me with a raised hand. Her concentration laser focused on Maigo.
“How long have you been with the NSO?” Collins asks.
“Two months on active duty,” Maigo says. “With Graham.”
“And you feel comfortable enough to speak to the Director so…directly?”
“Wouldn’t be doing my job if I sugarcoated the situation, ma’am,” Maigo says, letting Collins know she stands behind her words. “Hudson never did.”
Collins squints. “Agreed. But your stake in this is personal.”
Maigo nods.
“And not just because of your…encounters with Nemesis.”
Maigo pulls down the front of her blouse, revealing the Divine Retribution wings she’d been branded with as a teenager. “You know it’s not.”
“I didn’t know,” Blackwater says, not thrilled to see the brand.
“Why are we arguing?” Munk says. “When the city is literally shaking? Isn’t this like an ‘every second counts’ situation?”
“She wants to know she can trust us,” I say. “To do our part.”
“That’s bullshit,” Munk says, turning to Collins. “Look, I get it.” She motions to me. “He’s a salty S.O.B. with a penchant for violence.” She points to Blackwater. “She’s the leader of a feminist biker gang that identifies with the Goddess of Vengeance.” She pats Maigo’s shoulder. “And she’s a rookie who might be the closest thing to a bestie Nemesis has…who also happens to have been a Divine Retribution member, which I’m sure she totally regrets.”
Munk leans in close to Maigo. “You totally regret it, right?”
Maigo nods.
“Sweet,” Munk says, and then continues. “And I’m…hell. I’m an NSO fangirl who also happens to be a tour guide that has no business being here.” She looks to Owens. “And this guy, I don’t remember his name, but he does stuff, too. The point is…we’ve been saving the world for a few days now and we can do it again. Are we unconventional? Sure. But who the fuck else is going to do it?” She settles a little deeper into her chair like she’s just realized who she’s speaking to. “…ma’am.”
Collins just slowly nods, absorbing everything. Then she turns to Owens. “We’re good.”
“Really?” he asks, voice cracking in surprise. He glances at Munk, embarrassed, and then asks again with a less frazzled voice. “Really?”
“Really…what?” I ask.
“Well,” Owens says, opening a folder full of paperwork. “To officially use NSO resources on a mission of such magnitude, we need to make sure that all personnel are…well, personnel.”
“You want us to work for you?” Blackwater asks.
“No!” Munk says, smiling and snatching the offered paperwork from Owens’s hand. “No way.”
Blackwater takes the paperwork with less excitement, glancing it over.
“There’s a lot of pages and not enough time to read it all,” Collins says. “But the gist is that you’ll both be compensated probationary agents of the NSO.”
“There an NDA built into this?” Blackwater asks.
“Obviously,” Collins says. “But this is the only way I can authorize NSO resources for an extraction of this magnitude…and whatever else you all might get up to…or destroy…while carrying it out. It’s also backdated two days to cover any liability issues that might arise from your previous actions.”
Munk pulls out a pink pen with a fuzzy pom pom at the end. She flips to the last page and signs her full name, adding a little heart over the ‘i’ in Jennifer. “Is it okay that I used pink?”
